New Megaman Battle Network
A complete reimagining of the universe and stories of Megaman Battle Network.
Story 3: The Dimensional Core
Chapter 14: Full Circle
Yuichiro Hikari jumped as a fist loudly rapped on his open office door, demanding his attention. He was jolted out of the boring and mindless report he had been writing, and immediately swiveled in his chair toward the door, where one of the junior scientists was peeking his head in.
"Gerald? What is it?"
"You need to come see this," the younger scientist answered. "Forte's at DenDome."
"He's what?!" Yuichiro jumped out of his chair reflexively. "At the Mr. Famous exhibition?" He immediately started walking, and Gerald began to lead him down the hallway.
"That's right," the junior scientist replied. "And he's not alone."
After a minute of walking, the pair turned into a crowded lounge, which was packed full of older scientists, younger students and more. All of them were fixated on a large television on the wall, which was displaying a live news feed from DenDome. The voice of a newscaster was speaking something that nobody was paying attention to, as they were all focused on the Netbattle playing out on their screens. Everyone knew the face and form of Forte, but very few recognized the transformed Navi that was his opponent. Yuichiro, of course, knew instantly who he was.
"Oh, no." His hands moved up to grab his temples. "Oh, no, no, no, no. Tell me this isn't happening…"
He ran as far forward into the crowded room as he could, needing the closest possible look at the action, needing to see what his sons were doing. It was clear that Megaman had adopted his HubStyle transformation; even though Yuichiro had never properly seen it before, he knew instinctively that this was what happened. How Lan had removed the lock on his PET was anyone's guess, but Dr. Hikari would worry about his son's punishment later. He was transfixed to the images on screen, having to watch every second to ensure that his children would be alright, not sure what else he could do in this situation. He clutched the back of someone's chair as tightly as he could, hoping with all his might that HubStyle was powerful enough to defeat this menace.
As nearly everyone in SciLab watched the battle unfold, one of the now-empty rooms began to whir to life. Inside the Cross Fusion experiment lab, machines began to start up of their own volition, sucking up power and energy, with nobody in SciLab being any the wiser. At the center of the room, a tall, black pedestal slowly lit up, parts of it spinning to life, as it attempted to create something it had never made before.
Many of the children at DenDome had fled while Forte was sapping its power for himself, running to safety from the exploding lights. The few who remained witnessed one of the greatest Netbattles of their lives.
Megaman and Forte zipped around the arena, swords clashing and projectiles firing. Their movements from one place to the next were hard to track, and their blades and fists struck each other with incredible force. The two were more than a match for each other with their newfound power, and the battle proceeded with an intensity few people had ever seen.
Forte grew more frustrated with each blow that was deflected, not at all bolstered by the ones that landed. Minutes ago he had been throwing his opponent around like a rag doll, but this HubStyle transformation had increased Megaman's power far beyond his expectations, and for the first time in ages, Forte was unable to gain control of a battle. He found himself jumping backward and creating distance, trying to come up with a new strategy before his enemy could advance again.
Megaman continued to be the aggressor, continually closing the space between himself and Forte to push on with his attacks. He knew how clever and intelligent his opponent was, and didn't want to give him a chance to think up some new tricks.
He dashed forward and swung his sword, and at the same moment Forte held up a purple energy disc in front of him, as a sort of shield. The spinning attack knocked Megaman's sword back, and his enemy smirked and dashed forward, holding up the makeshift energy shield. Megaman had to leap backwards to avoid being injured, and just like that, Forte had the advantage again.
"You've done well so far, but not well enough!" He flung the energy wheel at his opponent and spawned several more, as Megaman continued to dodge backwards, his sword mostly ineffective against the attacks. He was backing toward the firewall, and having to suddenly move in any direction would leave him open for an attack.
Forte moved in to strike a powerful blow, when he felt several stinging pains along his back and side. Turning his head, he spotted Roll firing numerous crossbow shots in his direction. Mayl, not content with sitting and watching the dangerous battle play out, had refused to jack out her Navi, and was hoping her presence might tip the scales. Yai and Dex were waiting for their Navis to be restored, so they could join the fight as well.
Forte growled and flung an energy wheel at Roll, which she leaped away from with ease. He quickly turned back toward his opponent, but the momentary distraction proved to be too long. Megaman jumped forward, a newly formed Life Sword in hand, and sliced Forte into two parts with a diagonal slash.
As Forte fell to the ground, his newly-acquired healing kicked into action, and he was back in one piece before he hit the ground. He quickly flipped himself upright and held his blade above his head, as Megaman brought his crashing down. The two superpowered Navis fought against each other, pressing their swords together trying to gain the upper hand.
"Rrgh... more… than I expected..." Forte dug his heels in. "I suppose it's appropriate that it has come to this... and it sounds like you've figured out why."
"I know exactly what you mean." Megaman gritted his teeth, forcing his sword harder against Forte's, trying to break his guard. "I've known from the moment you deleted me days ago. I've known ever since you looked toward me with that icy glare, as you finished me off with a single blow."
Forte bent back further, as the force of his enemy's anger pushed him closer to the ground. "I remember it clearly now. You had that same look on your face back in SciLab, twelve years ago, when you decided to interfere with a cautionary procedure... when you murdered Hub Hikari."
"Hmph." Forte smirked, despite the situation. "I didn't think you would have memories from so early in your life."
"Shut up!" Megaman retorted. "How could you ever... how?! Explain yourself, you monster!" In a rage, he kicked his foot out at his opponent, trying to get in another attack. His cloaked foe used the opportunity to force Megaman off balance, and the two were soon clashing swords again.
"Call it a sociology experiment," Forte responded, advancing slightly on his opponent as they fought. "I was observing how you humans interact with Navis in unique situations. One of many attempts to understand how you people work... to understand whether or not the human race is worth saving."
"Experiments?!" Megaman shot back, swinging his sword with anger, starting to lose focus. "You think that humans are just your playthings? Who are you to pass judgment on them, when you murder them on a whim?"
"I am beyond reproach! I am the avatar of judgment itself!" Forte roared back, as he readied another attack in his free hand. "I have been chosen to judge the world by my god, the god who restored my frame and gave me purpose! He has given me this task, and I will not fail him!"
He flung an energy blast at his foe, but Megaman managed to deflect it with a near-instantaneous Reflect chip. As the blast went off in Forte's surprised face, his opponent rushed forward and stabbed his Life Sword through Forte's chest.
"You won't be judging anyone anymore," Megaman retorted. "I'm putting an end to your reign of terror, here and now." His cloaked foe responded by pushing Megaman back, forcing himself off of the sword, as the injury quickly mended itself.
"How do you expect to do that? I can heal any damage you do to me, in case you've forgotten."
"But not for free." Megaman pointed his sword at his enemy, during the brief pause in the action. "Each heal takes away some of your energy; you're becoming weaker with each killing blow I land. And that's how I'm going to win." He flung several Boomerang chips around his opponent, before dashing forward again.
Forte jumped back and spun his sword around, dispatching most of the Boomerangs before resuming his attack on his opponent. Megaman was right; at the rate things were going, it was possible he would lose this battle. He had to re-evaluate his strategy before things went drastically downhill.
Dr. Hikari had a white-knuckle grip on his knees as he sat and watched the battle on the screen, trying to relax, trying to sow some hope in his heart. Megaman was doing extraordinarily well, and was clearly the stronger fighter at this point - under any other circumstance, his scientific curiosity would be going into overdrive - but it still felt as if the tide could change at any moment. Forte was an opponent not to be underestimated. One false move and his son could be lost to him again, possibly forever.
His concentration was broken by a loud voice from the entrance of the room. "Hey, who locked this door?" He turned his head, along with several others, to see one of the workers rattling the doorknob, yanking on the door to no avail.
"Just unlock it," a female voice called out. "It locks from the inside."
"I tried that!" the first worker responded. "I can't unlock it! I think it's locked from the network!"
"What? Who would do that?"
Gerald, the scientist who had led Yuichiro to the lounge, pulled out his PET as he approached the door. "Well, let's hack it open, then. Maybe we'll see who screwed up and locked it." He jacked in to a panel next to the door, focusing on the screen, anticipating a quick hack job of fifteen seconds. Two minutes later, he was still staring intently at his PET, growing increasingly frustrated.
"This was not an accident…" he muttered to himself. "Someone locked this deliberately… someone who knew what they were- there!" He reached down and grabbed the doorknob, flinging the door open, and people started to spill outside, suddenly eager to leave after having been trapped, even for a couple of minutes.
Yuichiro followed several scientists outside, suspicious and looking around for any signs of trouble. Nothing jumped out at him right away, but there was something amiss that he couldn't quite place. After thinking on it for a few seconds, he realized with a start that every door around him was shut, which never happened. His body went cold as he noticed the rattling of doorknobs all around him, with the occasional pounding of a fist against a locked door. This was definitely not an accident.
"Did… did someone lock all the doors?" Gerald asked quietly from behind Dr. Hikari. "Who did that? Actually… how could anyone do that?"
Yuichiro didn't answer, immediately turning and walking down a hallway, pulling out his PET and rifling through his work contacts. "Iris, are you there? What's going on right now? Security's going haywire!" He waited for the system's female avatar to come into view on his screen, but after fifteen seconds, there was no response.
He cursed and started running down the hall, coming across another locked door in a matter of seconds. He grabbed his PET and jacked in, working to hack it open as quickly as possible. He knew on an intrinsic, primal level who was responsible for this, and what their target was. He tried to plan out a route in his head, needing to get to the Cross Fusion research lab with as few doors in his way as he could manage. His heart was settling into his stomach, terrified that they were already too late to stop what was about to happen.
Forte slammed heavily into the firewall he had created, blown back by several energy bombs. Megaman dove forward, ready to bury his blade into his enemy's abdomen, but the cloaked Navi jumped up and over the attack. Forte raised his fist, which began to glow with power, and slammed it back down into the ground, knocking his opponent off his feet. Megaman quickly backflipped back upward and dashed forward, throwing energy blasts out in front of him.
Forte tried not to grit his teeth in frustration. He had already taken a number of fatal blows, each one sapping more of his energy to repair, and his reserves were starting to run low. If the battle kept up in this manner much longer, he wouldn't be coming out of it alive.
"So this is the kind of power that Dr. Hikari was able to create," he mused aloud, forcing a devious smirk onto his face. "I guess this is what you're able to achieve when you have one less son to care for."
"You just love rubbing it in, don't you?" Megaman shot back, equipping a Magnum chip and firing a volley of shots toward his enemy, which were also dodged easily. He jumped into the air and brought his Life Sword down on his opponent, and their swords clashed and struggled once again.
"I'm in awe of what Navi scientists are able to achieve." Forte continued to hold his ground, watching the anger grow in the blue Navi's face. "I'm proud that I was able to make such a development possible."
"You're proud of being a child murderer, you psychopath?!" Megaman flung an energy blast at his foe's face, but Forte quickly deflected it away.
"Careful, Hub. Showing that much anger in battle can't be good for you."
"Graah!" Megaman, enraged, pivoted his body and brought his foot up toward Forte's head. His enemy reached out his hand, grabbing the boot and clutching it tight.
"After all... you might make a mistake..." He grinned maliciously, and electricity shot through his foe's body, as he began slowly draining energy. He lifted himself off the ground and into the air, as Megaman screamed out in pain, his body going limp as Forte drained his strength out of him. The color began to fade from his body, turning him from a bright blue to a dull grey, starting from his foot and working up his body.
Back in DenDome, Lan cried out in pain as well, his knees buckling as he felt the energy leave his legs. While the muscles in his legs were still as strong as ever, his mind was firmly connected to his Navi's, which was now sending signals of pain and weakness. He crumpled and collapsed to the floor, still keeping a tight grip on his PET.
Mayl gasped and started moving toward him, but then hesitated, looking back toward her own PET. She still wasn't sure what was going on, but she could guess that Lan's sudden weakness was related to what was going on in the battle arena. She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself as she watched the two Navis through her handheld screen.
Forte was now grinning like a maniac, feeling energy and strength flood into his body, still amazed at just how much power this HubStyle transformation had generated. His original strength had returned, and he was now exceeding even that level of power. He felt invincible, all-powerful, absolutely indomitable. The final obstacle had been eliminated, and now there was nobody left to stop his rise.
As the colorless region spread to Megaman's waist, Forte paued as he felt a sharp and surprisingly strong pain through his skull. His grip on his enemy faltered, and Megaman fell back toward the ground. Looking up, he could see the glowing blade of a a Life Sword sticking out of the front of his skull. Behind him, Roll was clinging to the hilt of the Program Advance, breathing hard and slightly drained from the effort.
As the Life Sword fell apart, Roll kicked away from Forte and launched herself back toward the ground, quickly moving to catch Megaman in her arms. The blade dissipated quickly, and Forte's wound was healed in less than a second. The cloaked adversary brought his attention back downward, his eyes narrowed at the two Navis below.
"You've only delayed the inevitable by a matter of moments!" His fist began to glow again, even brighter than before. "I'm already more powerful than both of you put together. Your last chance has vanished!" He dashed downward toward the two of them, ready to strike. Roll yelped and jumped away with Megaman in her arms, flying quite a ways in the air before landing and dashing away, as Forte's fist smashed into the ground, creating a shockwave that rippled out through the arena. The cloaked Navi turned toward the two of them, ready to pursue, when a heavy weight landed on top of him, temporarily pinning him to the ground.
"You get away from them, finhead!" Gutsman hollered from atop Forte, bringing his mighty fist down onto the back of his enemy's finned head. Meanwhile, Glyde was standing behind both of them, preparing to fire a Mega Cannon. Their enemy growled and quickly lifted himself up in the air.
"Get off me, you oaf!" He grabbed Gutsman's fist and swung him around, flinging him toward Glyde and sending a series of powerful energy blasts after him, not caring if they had been deleted. He turned and searched out Roll, who was on the other end of the arena, still blocked in by his firewall. He flew toward them at incredible speed, throwing more energy wheels at her; she turned around and spied them at the last second, leaping out of the way. She looked back at Forte, only to see him fly up and powerfully elbow her in the face. She cried out in pain and shock, knocked into the firewall from the impact, as Megaman fell back toward the ground, crying out in pain upon landing.
He opened his eyes to see Forte flying back toward him, fist glowing once again, ready to finish him off with a powerful smash. Megaman watched his enemy approach, moving at a frightening speed, before extending his buster arm and aiming it in Forte's direction. His hand glowed with a bright and powerful energy, containing all the energy in his body, ready for one last, massive attack.
Forte's eyes widened and he quickly slowed his descent, coming to a stop right before connecting with his enemy. Both Navis faced each other, each with one hand bathed in a powerful light, an attack that may or may not come.
Forte eyed Megaman's energy ball for a moment before turning his eyes back to his foe's. "You think such an attack is going to be able to stop me? I'm far more powerful than you now. You pose no threat to me."
"If that's true," Megaman replied quickly, glaring back into Forte's eyes, "then why did you stop?"
The two Navis stared each other down in silence, neither one sure how to react, or if they wanted to be the one to make the first move. The silence was broken by a small beeping noise in Forte's ear. He touched his hand to the side of his head, listening carefully to something that Megaman couldn't hear. He leaned in closer, trying to get a read on the report Forte was receiving, before the other Navi started floating upward, the glow vanishing from his fist.
"It seems that today is your lucky day, Megaman." He brought his cloak around once again to cover his body, as the firewall surrounding the arena suddenly disappeared. "I have more important things to attend to." In a flash, Forte disappeared, moving to other parts of the Net as fast as his frame could manage.
"Wha-?" Megaman sat up, trying to track down where his enemy flew off to in such a hurry, as Roll and a wounded Glyde dashed over.
"What happened? Where did he go?" Roll kneeled next to Megaman, her hands hovering over his legs as she focused her healing powers on him. She didn't have enough energy to heal him completely, even with Mayl's Battlechips, but she could at least restore function to his legs.
"I don't know... he just said something about more important things," Megaman replied, as he carefully stood up, looking in the direction where Forte went. "But I have an idea..."
Outside of the Cyberworld, Lan was getting gingerly to his feet, holding himself up by gripping the console as the strength returned to his legs. Mayl and Yai put their PETs down to run over and inspect him, as he reached forward and jacked his Navi out of the battle arena. As soon as Megaman was back in his PET and recharging, Lan felt his legs return to normal, and he sighed in relief.
"Lan, are you-" Mayl began, before he turned and quickly ran past her. She yelped and jumped backward to avoid him.
"What the...?" Yai rushed to Mayl's side as Lan ran for the doors urgently. "Lan! Where are you going?! Get back here!" she called out after him.
Lan ignored both of them, pulling out his skate wheels and dashing out onto the street. He ignored the storm clouds that were forming overhead, ignored the queasiness forming in his stomach and the pounding of his aching head. He hadn't bothered deactivating HubStyle when he jacked out, knowing that he was going to need it again soon. He was single-minded, focused only on finding Forte and stopping him from doing what Lan and Megaman knew he was going to try. Both he and his Navi prayed that his body would be able to hold out.
Fifteen minutes after he had escaped the lounge, Dr. Hikari was finally breaking through the digital lock to the Cross Fusion research lab. Once the lock had finally been deactivated, he placed his hand on the door handle, hesitating before opening the door. He could hear the sounds of machinery on the other side. The Dimensional Core generators were currently active, running their new routines that they had adapted from Forte's research notes. They had never tried creating a core with this strategy before, so he didn't know for sure if it would work. If it had worked… he was terrified of what awaited him inside this room.
Taking a deep breath, he pushed down on the door handle and threw the door open, quickly looking around. As he suspected, the generators were working at full capacity, with no obvious sounds of malfunction. There wasn't anyone else in the room that he could see, and it would be difficult to hide behind any of the devices in the room, due to their shapes. The pedestal in the center of the room, however, had no core sitting atop it. It lay completely bare, as if it had no relation to any of the other machines.
Yuichiro's initial wave of relief was immediately replaced with suspicion. Could their new system have been a complete failure, unable to generate even a tiny bit of Dimensional Core energy? Had Forte arrived to claim a core, then left when he realized it hadn't worked? He hoped that was the case, but as he walked further in to inspect the pedestal, he couldn't shake the sick feeling of dread in his stomach.
"Dad!" He whirled around to see his son standing in the doorway, running inside, breathing hard from the continued strain of HubStyle on his body. "What's going on here? Is Forte here?"
"Lan!" The two met in the center of the room, the older man placing his hands on his son's shoulders. "You have to get out of here! It's not-"
He looked up toward the door and froze in place, his heart stopping and his blood turning to ice. Lan looked up at the expression on his father's face before turning around, eyes widening and taking a step back, too shocked to even gasp. Hovering in the doorway, a few inches off the ground, was the cloaked, menacing visage of a Navi they both knew all too well. Despite being shorter than Dr. Hikari, his presence seemed to cast an enormous shadow over the entire area, as if he had summoned a veil of darkness to follow him. Lan felt his throat dry up.
"Just the two humans I wanted to see," Forte remarked, gliding forward into the room. There was a giddy and excited energy in his voice that he couldn't hide, but to the two Hikaris, it sounded as if every word was dripping with malicious intent. They jumped as the door to the room slammed shut on its own, leaving them trapped inside.
"I owe you a great debt of gratitude, Dr. Hikari," the Navi continued. "I knew that if any human could construct a Dimensional Core, it would be you. You followed my instructions to the letter."
"Instructions…" Yuichiro was struck with the cold realization of how and why they had recovered Forte's research notes from the destroyed lab. "How… how did you get into SciLab? Who gave you the keys?"
"Gave me the keys?" Forte snorted, insulted. "I wrote every line of security code currently running in this facility. I laid half of the networking cable myself. I made the keys." He continued hovering closer, his frame appearing to grow in Dr. Hikari's fearful eyes. "Perhaps if you had taken a closer look at Dr. Kouno, you could have delayed this outcome."
Dr. Hikari swallowed dryly, his legs feeling weak. He would have felt humiliated and ashamed, if he were not currently fearing for his life.
"Everything that has happened here has done so according to my machinations," Forte continued. "SciLab belongs to me, just as it always has. And now, the world will belong to me as well. There is only one thing left to do…"
The Navi suddenly dashed forward, reaching out and grabbing both Lan and Yuichiro by their necks. Both of them gasped and grabbed at his hands, kicking their legs as they tried to get free.
"I need to eliminate the two humans who could possibly stand in my way."
With enormous strength, Forte hurled Dr. Hikari against the back wall, followed by Lan. The scientist crashed heavily into the wall, smashing through it, landing amidst the rubble; Lan followed suit, creating a second hole in the wall and landing next to his father. As Yuichiro groaned and winced in pain, he looked up to see an energy blast explode above him, causing the ceiling to crack and bend and eventually give way. With only a fraction of a second to react, Yuichiro reached out and pulled his son toward him, wrapping the boy in his arms as the ceiling came crashing down on top of them, covering them in a pile of plaster and fiberglass. From the laboratory above, several machines fell down through the newly-created hole as well, smashing the rubble underneath and splintering into large, metallic pieces.
Forte watched the contents of the room above pile onto the Hikaris. He didn't know how much punishment a human body could take, having never assaulted one before, but he felt confident that neither of them would be getting up after this. He felt a sick sense of satisfaction growing inside him, as an evil grin spread across his face. He had finally done it. He had managed to maneuver himself and everyone around him into giving him ultimate power. After years and years, revenge was going to be his.
Surrounding himself with his Dark Aura, he rocketed up through the floors above, blasting out of the top of SciLab and flying through the darkening sky.
Several blocks away, Lan's friends had grouped up and decided to go after him, on Chaud's advice. Chaud led the charge, while Mayl, Dex and Yai ran behind him, trying their best to keep pace. As the SciLab building came into view, they all screeched to a halt as something loudly burst through the roof. They all looked up, squinting to make out the dark figure among the black storm clouds, freezing as they recognized the finned, cloaked Navi flying through the sky.
"Oh my... oh god…" Mayl's hand moved to cover her mouth, in shock. "Is that…?"
"Wait, isn't that the Navi we were just fighting?" Yai asked, not appreciating the gravity of the situation. She turned her head toward the young Official. "Eugene, what's going on?"
For the first time since Mayl, Dex and Lan had met Chaud, the boy was speechless. His wide, terrified eyes followed Forte as he sped across the sky, his breath trembling. Everything he had done up until now was to prevent what he had just seen from coming to pass. Now that his nightmare was a reality, he found himself briefly overwhelmed by despair.
"We…" he began, though he wasn't sure how to continue. "We… SciLab." He looked forward again, managing to find some resolve. "We have to get to SciLab, right now." He started running again, and the others followed.
"What are we going to do there?" Mayl asked.
"I don't know," Chaud replied. It was the most chilling thing anyone had ever heard him say.
Inside the Cross Fusion research lab, the machinery continued to plug away at its work, miraculously undamaged by Forte's assault on the two Hikaris. In the back of the room, the pile of rubble that Forte had created was shifting ever so slightly, parts of the ceiling moving and falling away as something underneath wriggled about. Soon, a bruised and scraped hand emerged from the wreckage, reaching around and pushing away bits of rubble where it could.
Moments later, Dr. Hikari's head emerged, blood trickling down the side, as he struggled to pull himself out of the mess with one arm. He eventually managed to crawl his way out, his left arm pulling him forward, his right arm wrapped tightly around an unconscious Lan's waist. Once he had pulled both of them free, he sat up and took a moment to catch his breath, before looking back toward the pedestal in the center of the room. He felt his heart leap as his eyes took in what he had been hoping to see. Sitting on top of the pedestal was a very small Dimensional Core, growing very slowly in size.
This was the one thing Forte had not counted on, he realized. During one of his late-night engineering sessions over the past few weeks, he had made a slight adjustment to the Dimensional Core generation mechanism. If a generated core was removed from the pedestal, the whole system would start again and begin to create another one. Forte had planned for a great many things, it seemed, but given the fact that none of the machinery had been damaged, he had not planned for this - which meant that this would be the one edge they had over him.
Yuichiro took a deep breath before reaching out for his son, holding the boy's limp body in his arms; his left arm and left leg hung down at odd and contorted angles, clearly broken. The man forced himself up into a standing position, letting out a loud cry of pain as he did so, his leg and his back protesting. He gritted his teeth and began limping forward, dragging his right leg underneath him, determinedly marching toward the miniature core.
Some minutes later, in downtown Den City, Haruka Hikari was driving down the street in the family car at a dangerous speed, making a beeline for SciLab. She parked diagonally in the closest spot she could find, almost forgetting to turn the vehicle off before stepping out. She crossed the street as soon as she could, not waiting for a crosswalk, as she glanced down at her phone once again, rereading the message she had received from Yuichiro.
bring the car to scilab south entrance right now
Her imagination was running wild with the possible emergency scenarios, which were made ten times worse as she heard the sound of approaching sirens. She hoped with all her heart that her family were safe and unharmed, especially her children. As she approached the south entrance, her heart jumped as her husband's face appeared near the door, streaked with blood.
"Yuichiro! What's happened?! Are you alright?!" she shouted, running up to him as he pushed his way through the door. As she looked over him, she came to a screeching halt as she saw the limp, unconscious frame that he held in his arms. It shouldn't have been possible, but Yuichiro was clearly holding Megaman in his arms, armor and all.
"What…" She ran up to him and looked over the young child carefully, unable to believe what she was seeing. The boy had Megaman's blue bodysuit, with the blue armor on his hands and feet, and a matching helmet. Upon closer inspection, however, his face featured Lan's brown eyes instead of Megaman's green ones, barely visible through half-open eyelids.
"I'll explain everything," Yuichiro assured her. "But we have to get away from here, right now. Please help me."
Haruka needed a moment to process what she was seeing, before looking back at him and nodded. She didn't know what was going on, but she did know that she would do anything to protect her children. She reached out and took the Lan/Megaman hybrid into her arms, turning and leading her husband toward the parked car across the street. Once everyone was inside, she got behind the wheel and drove off as quickly as she could, as the first drops of rain began to fall on Den City.
